Monday, February 4, 2002
Gagnon relaxed and ready to go
By CAMERON MAXWELL -- Calgary Sun
To look at Marc Gagnon is to look at the epitome of a short track speed skater.
He's got the short, spiky, dyed-blonde hair, a half dozen earings, is usually unshaven while sporting a goatee and a very laid back attitude.
But just looking at Gagnon isn't the whole picture.
Beneath the veneer of the laid-back Chicoutimi, Que. native, and four-time world champion, is a high-performance athlete who has battled nerves and insecurity over the years.
And Gagnon admits that's one of his faults, something that cost him at the 1998 Nagano Winter Games where he was fourth in the 500 and 16th in the 1,000 metres.
"I know the thing that went the most wrong there was pretty much mental, like I was getting a little bit too nervous and paying too much attention to everything that was going on, which made me even more nervous," said the 26-year-old, who finished second in a 1,000-metre heat at the CODA Winterfest short track meet yesterday at the Olympic Oval.
Gagnon will once again skate for Canada at the upcoming Salt Lake Games in the 500, 1,000, 1,500 and 5,000-metre team relay and says his past experience has helped him bring a different approach to the Olympics.
"I just want to stay relaxed this year. I'm older and I have a lot more experience and I don't want to get too nervous about everything," said Gagnon, a double Olympic medallist.
He still feels the nerves before a big competition but says part of that is normal.
"Every athlete that wants to win gets those butterflies but I still get a little nervous, yet I've grown a lot and I can tell you that I control myself much better than before, especially this year.
"But you can't control it all because if you're not feeling it, you don't want to win."
Make no mistake, when it comes to big events, Gagnon skates to win.
Yesterday, he lost to China's Li Jiajun after leading virtually every circle of the nine-lap race just to see how long he could skate out in front and when Jiajun would make his move, which came on the last lap.
"This weekend, maybe you don't want to get hurt and just see where you're at. In that race I wanted to see how much I could hold in front, like five or six laps, and I saw (Jiajun) coming and I didn't even try to finish with him," said Gagnon, who got into speed skating when he was three years old.
"But at least I saw what I wanted to but in a usual competition I skate to win."
China's Yang Yang (A) was also skating to win, breaking her own world record in the 1,000 yesterday, eclipsing her old mark of 1 minute, 31.991 seconds (also set in Calgary) with a time of 1:31.871, which still has to be ratified by the ISU.
"For me this is just practice now and I'm still not thinking about Salt Lake, which is good because I want to think of the Olympics as just another race," said the 26-year-old, who is favoured to win gold in the 1,000.
Chicoutimi's Marie-Eve Drolet also beat the old record, finishing behind Yang Yang with a 1:31.46 clocking.
2002 Games Short Track Speed Skating Coverage
